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Understanding 9/11View Post [edit]
| Poster: | bkidwell | Date: | May 19, 2011 4:52am |
| Forum: | GratefulDead | Subject: | Playin: the Post-Retirement Years [long] |
This post was modified by bkidwell on 2011-05-19 11:52:53
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| Poster: | ColdRain108 | Date: | May 19, 2011 3:35pm |
| Forum: | GratefulDead | Subject: | Re: Playin: the Post-Retirement Years [long] |
This post was modified by Little Sense on 2011-05-19 22:35:33
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| Poster: | light into ashes | Date: | May 19, 2011 4:11am |
| Forum: | GratefulDead | Subject: | Re: Playin: the Post-Retirement Years [long] |
(As bkidwell hinted, I hope to be finishing my "pre-retirement" Playing post sometime in the next couple weeks, which I suppose is one reason he started in '76!)
A couple small quibbles:
There was one year they didn't play Playing - 1975! Not a surprising omission, but an unfortunate one; it would've been cool to hear a version from this year.
And, I think sometimes in these years Playing did "shrink to a throwaway" - much as sometimes happened with Eyes or the Other One, we often find it distilled down to a brief, hasty rendition, a brief stop on the way to Drums or the next tune. (I'd guess Dark Star would frequently have been treated the same way, had they been playing it through the '80s.) Playing in its early years was always a highlight of the show - later on, not always!
Though it's almost churlish to mention, I feel like Playing lost a certain indefinable something after '74, and there aren't many later renditions where they're really recapturing the 'deep' jam. Then again, this is also a matter of personal taste (perhaps just kvetching, "it doesn't sound like it used to!") since the playing style did change considerably. The calm, 'quiet' approach of '76/77 can make me impatient - and adjusting to Brent isn't the easiest thing for me! And then in the early '80s, as you say, Jerry spent a lot of time buzzing like a bumblebee, without necessarily heading anywhere.
Maybe one way I could put it is that they often sound like they're playing the ideas of notes, rather than the actual notes, if that makes sense - that some of the music is in the spaces they're leaving out. Not sure whether this is laziness or, when you've played something hundreds of times, you're more able to play it in 'hints' rather than hitting each note.
One part of the song, though, I think indisputably suffered in these years - it's painful to hear the band lunge impatiently through the verses, with Weir hoarsely bellowing out the words! It makes me miss the patient approach of the early '70s, especially in the reprises where they used to really draw out the climaxes... But anyway, that was history.
I wondered if you might discuss the effect Brent had on the Playing jam - you kind of elided this, mentioning how the arrangement changed a bit in '79 (which is actually one of the things I don't like about the 'new' Playing, how hesitant they can be to actually start the jam as they linger in the 'theme' mode) - but his assortment of strange sounds may have been one thing that kept Playing adventurous, or altered how the others approached it.
When you mentioned the revival of Playing>Uncle John in 1980, I had to think of 9/6/80, one of the most famous sandwiches (though perhaps not one of the most jammed-out). This sequence was actually pretty rare in the early '80s, though - I think there are more Playing>China Dolls! (Which is an interesting sequence in its own right, and one Jerry must have liked.)
It's kind of a marvel Playing went into any songs at this point, considering how frequently it was put in the pre-drums slot, when Jerry must have been getting anxious to take a break... (Many Playings therefore devolve into Bob/Brent jams as Jerry leaves early! Another one of my peeves.)
10/15/83 is my favorite Playing that I've heard from the '80s. That was a pretty good tour actually - and I agree that many of the 1984 jams have a surprisingly dark, dreamy feel. (They seem to have lightened up in '85!)
Your '86 pick was interesting, as the first part of the year is dismissed as "unfortunate" - but there's still this version, in which they take their time with the jam - suprising in a set that only has 2 predrums songs!
http://www.archive.org/details/gd1986-04-19.sbd-pcm.miller.34764.flac16
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| Poster: | bkidwell | Date: | May 19, 2011 5:28am |
| Forum: | GratefulDead | Subject: | Re: Playin: the Post-Retirement Years [long] |
Bill Kreutzmann's performance in PITB during 72-74 is really one of the wonders of the musical universe. The rhythmic foundation in 1976 is radically simplified. From 72-74 Billy burns with searing blue flame in Playin, somehow unifying the innumerable variations of Jerry and Phil into a groove that moves forward like a rocket-powered shark. From 1976 on, a lot of the rhythm in PITB jams was just a pretty straightforward synchronized tap-tap-tap-tap, rather than Billy's continuously rolling sinuous groove with driving snare fills from the preretirement era.
I agree this was really a light summary! I didn't think pasting my listening notes on several hundred versions would really be very useful or interesting to anyone. The rather arbitrary decision to feature a single version per year and mention another as a subsidiary interest is just a standard way to try to give the material some shape and reduce it to a skeleton.
I agree 4/19/86 is notably long and takes a certain kind of very loose, spaced-out jamming to an extreme, but I think some of it is actually kind of bad. The first few minutes are good, but a lot of the rest comes uncomfortably close to me to fulfilling the negative stereotype of the Dead's jams as random notes and plonks and buzzes without any kind of musical direction.
I also acknowledge Bob's often forced singing. The actual singing part of the song is something I always more or less tune out, even for the best early 70s versions - Bob sings better, but Donna's yeaaaa-eeee-aaaa-yaaaahhh isn't usually a high point!
I'm a bit surprised 10/15/83 is your favorite 80s version - I agree its great, but I usually feel "the further and wilder the journey, the better" when it comes to PITB, so 7/29/88 and other versions that make the journey to atonal chaos and back or visit very distinctive spaces like 12/27/89 go a lot further for me in doing justice to the legacy of the 72-74 era, and I also hear a lot better interaction between Jerry and Phil in the late 80s. You recently quoted some of Phil's early 80s comments about people not listening and "playing ahead" rather than interacting in the jams, and as much as I love 10/15/83, I still hear Jerry following his fingers more than his ears, so to speak, in comparison to how things flow in 89. I haven't seen you comment extensively on what you think of the "MIDI era", I know a lot of people hear it as too artificial - but as I've mentioned previously, the MIDI space jams were the element that initially appealed to me as a classical music listener! I think the fact that most listeners approach the Grateful Dead from a musical perspective grounded in Rock & Roll is one of the reasons the quality of the midi era isn't apparent to all ears - I often hear more Debussy and Stravinsky and Copland in the 90s than I hear rock.
That brings me round to the topic of how Phil is actually the heart and soul of the band even more than Jerry, and how alive and inspired he was in the band's later years, but I can tell I'm wandering off-topic! Thanks again for the feedback.
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| Poster: | Dudley Dead | Date: | May 19, 2011 8:18am |
| Forum: | GratefulDead | Subject: | Re: Playin: the Post-Retirement Years [long] |
Being as much a Classical listener as Deadhead (I was a "Classical Buyer" at the Tower Records El Toro/Lake Forest location for 24 years), Phi is a real hero to me . In your discussion , you mention the Phil-Jerry playing post-coma . But Phil getting off his drinking problem, is sometimes overlooked factor in the improvement in this period . The more Phil was "in to it" , the better it was IMO .
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| Poster: | jerlouvis | Date: | May 19, 2011 9:31am |
| Forum: | GratefulDead | Subject: | Re: Playin: the Post-Retirement Years [long] |
80'
1/13, 3/31, 9/2, 9/25
81'
3/2, 5/4, 5/8,10/8
82'
2/20, 4/14, 7/27, 8/7, 8/28, 9/12, 9/15,
83'
3/25, 5/14, 6/18, 9/10, 10/21
84'
6/9, 6/24, 7/7,
85'
3/12, 4/13, 4/28, 9/2, 9/12
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| Poster: | utopian | Date: | May 20, 2011 4:59pm |
| Forum: | GratefulDead | Subject: | Re: Playin: the Post-Retirement Years [long] |
http://www.archive.org/details/gd1980-01-13.sbd.miller.106517.flac16
One of my most visited shows. This one has it all for me and has
converted many to believe. The band is locked into a groove for this scorcher. Reminds me more of the heyday of fall 79 than the rest of 80 which seemed more homogenized and settled than the blistering fall 79 run.
Don't remember a hotter three song opener, seemed like they were trying to pack it into this shorter benefit show. Beautiful jack>franklins> minglewood. LL rain is as good as it gets, playin gets out there. Nfa is long and improvised with help from the guests.
Yea I just really love this one, thanx.
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| Poster: | light into ashes | Date: | May 19, 2011 12:57pm |
| Forum: | GratefulDead | Subject: | Re: Playin: the Post-Retirement Years [long] |
I noticed that from '81 on, Weir has a much more metallic guitar sound; not really to my taste, but it changes the flavor of the jam and he seems to step up a lot more with his slashes & reverb. By '84 some of those Playing jams are downright surly & aggressive.
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| Poster: | jerlouvis | Date: | May 19, 2011 11:13pm |
| Forum: | GratefulDead | Subject: | Re: Playin: the Post-Retirement Years [long] |
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| Poster: | bkidwell | Date: | May 19, 2011 11:04am |
| Forum: | GratefulDead | Subject: | Re: Playin: the Post-Retirement Years [long] |
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| Poster: | light into ashes | Date: | May 19, 2011 7:38am |
| Forum: | GratefulDead | Subject: | Re: Playin: the Post-Retirement Years [long] |
That said, it's easy to over-exaggerate the differences between prehiatus & post-hiatus Playings - though the tones were different, they were often still wandering in the same zone. Jerry has a certain familiar "Playing" style just like he has an "Other One" style, etc, especially when he breaks out the wah-wah.
It's hard to say why I bonded with 10/15/83 so; after hearing it alongside a half-dozen other '83 Playings, it just seems to have a certain excitement and hypnotic charge in it, though it doesn't get into any big wildness. After more listening, I could find new favorites!
But I'm certainly no expert in '80s Playings - since I don't have much of a connection to those years, I distinguish less between the good jams and the random plonks & buzzes!
I rarely comment on the MIDI years because I cannot stand MIDI; the band's sound is just hard for me to take.
Anyway, I found a few more Playings from the early '80s I thought were fine versions:
http://www.archive.org/details/gd81-05-04.sbd.clugston.2250.sbeok.shnf
http://www.archive.org/details/gd82-04-14.sbd.braverman.7629.sbeok.shnf
http://www.archive.org/details/gd83-06-18.senn421.nawrocki.14411.sbeok.shnf
http://www.archive.org/details/gd84-10-15.senn.miller.22022.sbeok.shnf
(The '84 one I thought was an especially good example of a "dark & dreamy" '84 jam. Didn't check into '85, as I remember the Playings from that year being mostly disappointing...)
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| Poster: | bkidwell | Date: | May 19, 2011 9:05am |
| Forum: | GratefulDead | Subject: | MIDI and sound-concept vs. reality |
Anyway, midi - I understand why the rather hard-edged and brittle/canned sound of the sampling synths used in the midi setups is objectionable to some ears, but to me this is analogous to the problem of recording quality of some early tapes. From an audiophile perspective, a show like 6/24/70 is severely flawed, and in comparison to a true acoustic symphony orchestra, the Grateful Dead's 88-95 synth sounds can be grating.
Just as ears can "hear through" the crowd noise and imperfections and perceive the white heat of 6/24/70, I think it is possible to "hear through" the technological limitations of the guitar synths to perceive the sonic idea the band was aiming for. I hear the Feedback jams of 1968 and the midi-spaces of the 90s to be aiming at the same musical ideal, a kind of cosmic sound-sculpting, a surrealistic orchestra.
I think from the band's perspective, the midi synths were a way to get closer to the sounds they had been trying to make all along! I think the ideal that each musician could, in theory, produce absolutely any sound they could imagine was the goal, and Feedback, Phil's amazing sonic effects with the Wall of Sound, and midi-controlled samples were all aspects of that dream.
From my perspective, all rock music has a rather harsh sound in comparison to a symphony orchestra or solo acoustic piano. A violin is a much subtler, more expressive instrument than the electric guitar - but this doesn't invalidate the excitement that electric instruments can generate! The dynamic, driving energy of a 68 Alligator->Caution wouldn't be improved by performance on flute and lute. Similarly, the freedom to explore a wider universe of timbres using synthesizers enabled the exploration of new musical territories. A Phil quote:
"The resulting timbral combinations, especially in the space segment of our show, began to border on the surreal. Bob would be playing some kind of wheezing calliope sound, Jerry a trumpet tone that was just a little askew, and my favorite was a flute sound that when played in the very low register virtually defined the term sub-contrabass piccolo."
Phil had always been inspired by composers like Charles Ives who would juxtapose two completely different pieces of music at the same time, and he dragged Jerry to Wagner's epic Ring Cycle in 1985, where brief melodies that represent the story of heroes and gods are interwoven across 4 nights - just like a multi-night Dead series. I am not trying to argue that any given way of hearing is right or wrong, but to my ears, the best of the midi-era Playins, Dark Stars, and Spaces are the closest in improvisational quality to music the band played in 73-74.
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| Poster: | Jim F | Date: | May 20, 2011 1:07am |
| Forum: | GratefulDead | Subject: | Re: Playin: the Post-Retirement Years [long] |
I'm in the middle of 5/19/77's Playin due to the TDIH and all, so that's where my head is at right now in terms of post-hiatus Playin's. As much as I love those of 73+74 (while usually quite good performances, I'm actually usually not as excited about a lot of the more popular 72 versions), sometimes I specifically want to hear that 76/77 style. All-time favorite versions of mine include things like 2/26/77 and 3/19/77.
Anyway, I could stay up too late if I got into a Playin' discussion now, but I wanted to add that I would love for someone to put together a "Post-Garcia" list of Playin's. Or any song for that matter. Over the last 15 years most of us have all seen at least one or two Ratdog, Phil and Friends, The Other Ones/The Dead/Furthur, etc shows. But we don't really talk about them. I know so much "useless information" about GD history and performances, but so little of the post-GD stuff, which is like some mysterious, foreign territory.
Obviously there's the whole no-Jerry thing, but surely there's some pretty good versions that have been played in the last 15 years. One of the best Playin's I ever saw was a Phil and Friends version with Weir from 2001. I highly recommend all of this very noteworthy show to everyone, but for these purposes check out the opening Playin sandwich. Really fun stuff. But I won't rave about it, just give it a listen, maybe you'll like it, maybe you won't.
http://www.archive.org/details/2001-07-10.paf.ka200n-marty.burns.28671.sbeok.flacf
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| Poster: | bkidwell | Date: | May 20, 2011 6:49am |
| Forum: | GratefulDead | Subject: | Re: Playin: the Post-Retirement Years [long] |
I think one aspect of the later GD-related groups that makes study difficult is the amount of personnel churn. Just in relation to the story of PITB, I think during the original band's touring years you can hear steady change over time - but in the later situation where have so many different band members changing from year to year, there isn't an opportunity for that kind of continuity.
That said, I think post-95 performances are still relevant, and the full tale of "Playing in the Band" has to include them - after all, we include Mickey and the Hartbeats in the canon of shows.
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| Poster: | Jim F | Date: | May 20, 2011 11:40pm |
| Forum: | GratefulDead | Subject: | Re: Playin: the Post-Retirement Years [long] |
I mean I don't always like a lot of the music, and I cannot think of much of it that can compare equally to my favorite GD shows from 1968, but I think people are too quick to hate on anything that happened after Jerry Garcia died. I mean Jerry Garcia was one musician, one great musician, who worked with a group of other musicians. They don't have to cease being musicians just because he died, and it doesn't mean they can't still perform good music.
Now I will also admit that it's VERY rare that I pull out some random Ratdog or The Dead show that I didn't attend over your average TDIH GD show from 1974 or something. I will often pull out recordings from modern-era concerts I've been to, especially as I'm a bit of a taper myself. But 9.99 times out of 10, I get much, MUCH more enjoyment out of almost any PLQ show in the 99-02 range than anything the GD did in their last couple of years. In fact, when it comes to Phil's groups (mostly the 99-02 era, I was utterly disappointed by the Jackie Greene era shows I saw), I am in that camp that feels that there are plenty of those exceptions where the music was actually BETTER than some GD music.
Same with Ratdog. I personally find just about any Weir solo effort from the 70's and 80's to be pretty lame (though I should not that I watched the "I Wanna Live In America" video the other day). But I saw Ratdog do some pretty cool shit in the early 2000's. My first exposure to Ratdog was the 3 piece I think it was, 96 or 97, and I wasn't that thrilled with them. But when I finally got around to seeing them on the first date of the "Evening Moods" tour in early 2001, and a few more times over the next couple of years, I thought they had improved by leaps and bounds. They were no Mickey and the Hartbeats, but I'd still rather listen to an inspired Ratdog show from the 2000's than the Grateful Dead in 1994.
Anyway, that is a good point that was made about there being such a constant change in lineups and bands over the years. That most definitely changes the whole idea of there being any continuity regarding the development and evolution of a song, in this case, Playing in the Band. The way I look at it is, at this point, it's not so much about one particular band evolving a song, it's more about many bands evolving the reportoire as a whole. We are at a point in time where these songs are still being performed and in a way developed by the people who actually wrote them. In another 15 years, this whole argument will be irrelevant, as the only people playing this music will be cover bands. I just hate to think that any of the music Phil Lesh or Bill Kreutzmann or Bob Weir made after Jerry Garcia died won't be considered valid.
It's certainly not the same argument to discuss the post-95 bands in relation to one-member changes within the actual Grateful Dead over the years, but there is a parallel in what was said about the band post-Pig or post-Brent, etc. I'll admit that I'm never going to be convinced that there was ever a Bobby Good Lovin or Lovelight that can hold a candle to a Pigpen version. So I can see how people can feel that anything played after Garcia died can't compare. But on another level, the band still played some pretty damn good music after Pig died, or Keith, Hell even after Brent died.
I dunno, I'm just rambling. I guess perspective is what it's all about, on many levels. As it is, I'm mainly talking here about listening back to recordings of live performances, not the actual experience of being a part of those performances. Discussing the "X-Factor" and all of that is just too subjective, both in terms of people's individual tastes, as well as things like the difference between the best version of such and such you SAW LIVE, and the best you've ever HEARD.
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| Poster: | bkidwell | Date: | May 21, 2011 12:31am |
| Forum: | GratefulDead | Subject: | Re: Playin: the Post-Retirement Years [long] |
One is that a lot of people have made a distinction between the shows as an in-the-moment experience, and the tapes as a document of that. This goes back a long way, and there have always been some Heads who say that the quality and experience of a show is a totally different thing than what can be heard on the tapes - some great shows have lousy tapes, and sometimes the tapes sound good even if the "vibe" wasn't there during the performance. There's an aesthetic perspective on improvised music which claims that it has to be experienced in real-time, that the moment of spontaneous creation is where the music lives and the recordings are just a "fossil" rather than the living, breathing thing.
The opposing reaction I have is what I mentioned before, that history has to sort it out. We are still part of the unfolding process, with too much emotional connection to events. A lot of people's lives were and are lived at shows and traveling to them, as reading a lot of "show reviews" which are actually "life anecdotes" demonstrates.
Some non-fans of anything the GD did think the music doesn't have lasting value and will be forgotten once touring and show culture passes out of living memory. I'm in the opposite camp, I think the GD and its members have earned a place in the musical pantheon alongside the 19th century Germans while most late 20th century popular music will be forgotten.
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| Poster: | light into ashes | Date: | May 21, 2011 9:24am |
| Forum: | GratefulDead | Subject: | Re: Playin: the Post-Retirement Years [long] |
I agree that the Dead's music will be more highly regarded as time goes on. And while the experience of being at a Dead show was very important - it will, of course, fade away in importance as time goes on, showgoers get older, and more young people get into the Dead's music who never lived through the "culture" of the Dead. Already, the '60s band is more of a historic relic than a memory for most people. In time, the tapes will be all that's left, and they'll be judged on the the music alone, not the experience...
I wonder what internet discussions of the Dead will read like in 2050.....assuming anybody's posting on the 'internet' then....
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| Poster: | AltheaRose | Date: | May 19, 2011 3:56am |
| Forum: | GratefulDead | Subject: | Re: Playin: the Post-Retirement Years [long] |
There's absolutely zip I can add, except for one teensy little diddly detail. Instead of "6/25/85 Cuyahoga," it makes more sense IMO to call it 6/25/85 Blossom. The show was at Blossom music center in Cuyahoga Falls outside of Cleveland (similar to Merriweather Post being in a kind of no-man's-land exurb of DC). "Cuyahoga" would mean, I guess, that the band played while balancing on the muck of the original Black Muddy River ... and while I don't have a super-detailed memory of the show, I think I'd have remembered that part :-)
Thanks so much for your wonderful contribution!
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| Poster: | bkidwell | Date: | May 19, 2011 4:54am |
| Forum: | GratefulDead | Subject: | Re: Playin: the Post-Retirement Years [long] |
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| Poster: | Dudley Dead | Date: | May 19, 2011 7:55am |
| Forum: | GratefulDead | Subject: | Re: Playin: the Post-Retirement Years [long] |
I also ditto LIA's comments about the rushed, marginalizing of the "song" parts ; and the sometimes perfunctory ,"ok now we have to do our Grateful Dead jam thing" feel you sometimes get .
Great work ! It will force me to listen a little more carefully, and gain more from it . Thank you !
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| Poster: | vapors | Date: | May 19, 2011 3:38am |
| Forum: | GratefulDead | Subject: | Re: Playin: the Post-Retirement Years [long] |
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| Poster: | bookends | Date: | May 19, 2011 6:18am |
| Forum: | GratefulDead | Subject: | Re: Playin: the Post-Retirement Years [long] |
And...there goes my Thursday!
I had to catch myself the other day, when I told my wife..."I was trying to finish a big project at work, but then I got sidetracked reading The Forum..."
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| Poster: | weironamissionfrombob | Date: | May 19, 2011 7:29am |
| Forum: | GratefulDead | Subject: | Re: Playin: the Post-Retirement Years [long] |
Oh Yeah even though they took this show and one around the same time in Maryland, to make dicks picks 20 you can still get a great aud copy here
http://www.archive.org/details/gd76-09-28.aud.vernon.14356.sbeok.shnf
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| Poster: | weironamissionfrombob | Date: | May 19, 2011 7:39am |
| Forum: | GratefulDead | Subject: | Re: Playin: the Post-Retirement Years [long] |
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| Poster: | bkidwell | Date: | May 19, 2011 7:41am |
| Forum: | GratefulDead | Subject: | Re: Playin: the Post-Retirement Years [long] |
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| Poster: | weironamissionfrombob | Date: | May 19, 2011 8:09am |
| Forum: | GratefulDead | Subject: | Re: Playin: the Post-Retirement Years [long] |
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| Poster: | snow_and_rain | Date: | May 19, 2011 7:59am |
| Forum: | GratefulDead | Subject: | Re: Playin: the Post-Retirement Years [long] |
This post was modified by snow_and_rain on 2011-05-19 14:59:09
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| Poster: | light into ashes | Date: | May 19, 2011 11:00am |
| Forum: | GratefulDead | Subject: | from Keith to Brent |
This is an example of an excellent mid-1978 Playing:
http://www.archive.org/details/gd78-04-15.sbd.cotsman.7047.sbefail.shnf
The band's pretty charged-up at this show, and there's a lot of variety in this version. Jerry's still using his drifting 'magical' wah style, and the band is driving and percussive. But they switch gears a few times, Jerry changing his tone & approach, so it's reminiscent of older Playings where the mood would keep shifting.
Jumping ahead, this is one of the best Playings of early '79, Keith's last shows:
http://www.archive.org/details/gd1979-01-15.sbd.miller.102389.flac16 -
Keith stays in the background, as was his preference in the last year. The big change is Jerry - in early '79 he favored a constant flurry of fast notes, and in Playings of this period he basically stays in that mode throughout, so that it sounds kind of like a long Eyes outro (though there's also a little meltdown in this version).
Once Brent joined, the Playing jam changed its nature a bit. Playings from the rest of the year tend to be very slow, calm, and probing - although Jerry's noodling rapidly along, the band stays very restrained and laid-back. Brent mainly adds color; in his first year, he doesn't take the lead in the jams as much as Keith did in '71. The big events in these '79 Playings are the meltdowns they'd sometimes throw in at the ends, with Brent tossing his sci-fi sounds into the maelstrom.
Playings from this year also tend to be long, in the 20-minute range, and to my ears very monotonous - I admit this is not my favorite year for this tune, as 20 minutes of quiet noodling can be pretty dull, and it's hard to find a Playing I like very much!
Some of that may be the nature of the SBD tapes we have, as the band dynamics are not as apparent as on good AUD tapes. For instance, you get a better idea of the 8/4 Playing from the AUD than from the awful SBD tape:
http://www.archive.org/details/gd1979-08-04.sonyecm.severson.minches.90699.sbeok.flac16
http://www.archive.org/details/gd1979-12-28.senn421.walker-scotton.miller.89273.sbeok.flac16
12/28 is by far the best of the late '79 Playings, and in terms of energy seems to signal a shift toward the more energetic 1980 shows. As you said, they deliberately shortened the jams in 1980; the tradeoff was that their playing was punchier and more active. So 1980 Playings to my ears, though shorter, tend to be more interesting than the ones from '79. (Brent also starts stepping out more - ironically, he sometimes has a percussive-chord approach in these jams not much different from where Keith ended up!)
Some examples from the spring:
http://www.archive.org/details/gd80-01-13.sbd.popi.6145.sbeok.shnf
http://www.archive.org/details/gd80-03-31.senn.barbella.4741.sbeok.shnf http://www.archive.org/details/gd1980-05-04.aud.glassberg.motb-0037.96584.flac16
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| Poster: | Jim F | Date: | May 21, 2011 12:41am |
| Forum: | GratefulDead | Subject: | Re: from Keith to Brent |
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| Poster: | bkidwell | Date: | May 19, 2011 11:34am |
| Forum: | GratefulDead | Subject: | Re: from Keith to Brent |
I think one aspect I enjoy is the idea of really large scale composition over the years - if every PITB from 71-95 was quiet and hypnotic in the fashion of the late 70s, I would be very unhappy! I really like it as a "flavor" that is focused on just a few years, though. That applies even to, say, the superlative versions from Europe 72 - even though a random 82 Playin is weaker than a random 72, the process of change over the decade makes me glad, and I think the dead would be a less important and interesting band if the E72 sound and style had "frozen" and a late 80s show sounded identical to the ear.
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| Poster: | jerlouvis | Date: | May 19, 2011 10:54pm |
| Forum: | GratefulDead | Subject: | Re: from Keith to Brent |
